Apple's iPhone continues to dominate the smartphone market. With more than 40 billion apps downloaded by customers, iPhone dominants the app industry. Apple's app store offers a staggering 775,000+ apps its users. People are increasingly becoming dependent on various apps for day-to-day activities. Be it for games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel, there is an app for virtually anything imaginable. Companies of all sizes big or small are embracing the App revolution. Organizations are constantly tweaking their mobile commerce strategies and have had unpredictable levels of success, but the trend is clear: either change or be left out.
There are many different kinds of apps you can develop. You can find many categories on Apple's App store such as Business, finance, education, family& kids, news, travel, health& fitness, social networking, games and sports. The list goes on and on. After you select a category, you have to decide the type of application you want to develop.

In this article, I will be discussing about different types of apps in terms of their features and functionality and the top questions you need to ask yourself before you get going with iPhone app development.

#1 Table based apps: These applications follow a simple design for displaying basic information. In this particular type of app you have an opening screen with large topics. By simply clicking on one of the topics, you get an entire new set of lists to click on. Example of table-based app is the email app.

#2 Database driven custom apps: These apps are ideal if you have a voluminous content in your app and a simple table-based design would not work. It can be a daunting task to maintain such apps as they are dynamic.

#3 Games: iPhone games are undoubtedly the most popular iPhone apps. With its popularity comes challenges and complexity. Be it keeping track of points, countless options to score points, seamless user experience while handling iPhone device and much more. iPhone game apps development could be a tough nut to crack and might need thoughtful decision making throughout the development phase. It may require hooking into Game Center.

#4 Device firmware/hardware: This type of iPhone application usually facilitates the users in performing phone functions. For instance, its alarm, flash, and camera.

#5 Custom utilities: These apps allow user to input content in a very specific way.

Ideally, you should decide the type of app based on requirements of your business. The process of iPhone apps development is divided into 4 primary steps, namely ideation, interface designing, development, and release. Bear in mind an app is a tool. App alone won't increase your brand value and isn't going to attract users just because it is available in the app store. Before you jump on the app boom bandwagon, there are a few questions that need to be answered.

Question #1: Do you need iPhone app?

Are you building iPhone app just for the sake of it? Don't miss out on the essence of the app. It should have a purpose and should fall in sync with your long-term business goals. If there is already an app on the app stores that does exactly what your app aims to do, you need to think different. In some cases, developing mobile websites compatible with all mobile devices might be a better solution than building an iPhone app.

Question # 2: Is it worth the cost and pain?

You could spend anywhere between $15,000-$50,000 on an iPhone app. This amount could increase depending on the sheer complexity and magnitude of your app. If your are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on iPhone app, it is but obvious that the app should generate ROI. The app should improve bottom-line results, streamline process, enhance customer service parameters, save time, and increase employee productivity. It makes no sense spending your resources on coding and deploying if you don't anticipate any tangible results soon.

Question #3: What's the future like?

iPhone App store is the main way to distribute your app. But you'll have to use different permutations and combinations of channels to promote your app. For starters, social media channels are great ways of promoting your app. Trust the good old email marketing as another way to invite already existing customers to download your app. Email might sound old fashioned in this era of social media marketing, but it still works. You can even link to online videos to effectively demonstrate functionality of your app. Also, you need to be prepared for numerous software updates and maintenance cost associated with updating your app.

In Conclusion:

Before developing an iPhone app it is important to understand the project and its implications. Remember complexity of an app is directly proportional to cost and ultimately it may generate a greater ROI. It is crucial that you know your budget, type of app needed, resources, and marketing plan before you take a plunge in app development.

Author BioTodd Riddle is a mobile application developer associated with a custom mobile app development company. He is passionate about leveraging technology to meet bottom-line results. He also regularly writes on latest trends that directly affect the mobile application development industry.

There is not point wasting time and money for developing iPhone apps if it not effective and money spinning. So , it is certainly necessary for any company and individual to consider every point before developing any iPhone apps.

The point you are making is true for any software development endeavour be it a web application or a desktop application. The only deviation to this norm is of it being a money generating avenue is where a novice learn indepth about a given platform.